Days Like This by Jay Bryson
I got off the plane thinking "I'm never going to fly again". I hate flying! Then I remembered that you have to wait on your luggage. Eventually we got our luggage after 2 hours of waiting. Turin airport was being refurbished as they were holding the Winter Olympics at Turin and it was like a builder's site! If you got bus sick then you wouldn't like the bus ride that followed. It was straight up the motorway from Turin but then there it was, The Alps. From there to Bardonecchia, it was up and down hills then through long dark tunnels. We finally got to Bardonnechia. We drove through the village and past the Olympic Village where the Winter Olympic snowboarders would be staying. It was all new and was being guarded by armed police men. Our hotel was another 2 minutes further on. We got our apartment and then went to get measured for our skis and boots.
Later on that day 1 remember putting on my skis and trying to get on the chair lift, which I did manage to do, but I just remember my mum falling flat on her face when trying to get off. The people in the supervising hut had to run out and help her up, then my brother Grant thought he would be like the skiers on TV, bent over with his poles pointing behind him, but unlike the skiers on TV he was only going at about 2mph.
We went for our lunch at the bar where you order your pizzas and you watch them making them in front of you. They are the best pizzas I have ever tasted!
Then just when it was getting dark that day I thought I could master a jump but I was proved wrong. I went up on the chair lift, I was skiing down then I saw a perfect jumping opportunity. All I remember was my dad helping me up from a pile of soft snow. It was all over my face! My mum said I went up and down and backflipped and landed on my face. Luckily the skis snapped off like they were meant to or I might have badly injured myself.
We had a visit from the Thomson Rep. to tell us that we would be flying home from Milan Airport instead of Turin because they had found an unexploded bomb from WW2 when they had been refurbishing Turin Airport for the Winter Olympics. The Rep told us that if it was not diffused properly then it could blow up the airport and the surrounding area, so they had to divert all the flights and evacuate the houses nearby. Flying from Milan meant an extra hour and a half bus journey for us though.
